ComputerUser article on anti-P2P measures

[Drakonix]

How much is too much when it comes to record companies
protecting their copyrights? That question is getting closer
to being answered as labels seek more and more intrusive
ways to stop file-sharing, and parties concerned with civil
liberties try to stop them.

Record companies are looking into a number of those ways,
many of which are on shaky ethical, if not legal, ground.
Some labels have already deployed spoof files (which
masquerade as music files but contain either nothing at
all, or something other than the song being sought) onto
peer-to-peer networks, but they've had little effect.

Other tactics being tested include so-called Trojan horse
files, which simply redirect file traders to sites where
they can purchase music, and freeze files, which
temporarily lock up a file trader's computer. Another kind
of program is designed to look through a file trader's hard
drive for copyrighted music and delete any such files it
finds. All five of the major record labels are reportedly
involved in developing counterpiracy measures.

The most notorious spoof track so far greeted Madonna fans
who tried to download her new single, "American Life."
Instead of the song, they got a recorded greeting from the
artist herself: "What the (expletive) do you think you're
doing?" As a way to stop distribution of the song, the
tactic's effectiveness was debatable, but the net result
was predictable: Within days after the spoof track began
circulating, her admonition was all over the Web as a
sound bite used mockingly in dozens of remix tracks. How
such a savvy operator as Madonna didn't anticipate this
kind of comeuppance is hard to say.

The joke was on Madonna in this case, but the potential
results of allowing corporations to invade people's homes
are no laughing matter. Congressman Howard L. Berman's
(D-Calif.) Peer-to-Peer Piracy Prevention Act would provide
immunity to copyright owners who use technology to disable
or otherwise interfere with file trading--in other words,
it would sanction malicious hacking.

The bill didn't pass in the last legislative session, but
will likely be reintroduced in the next. Berman has been
careful to accentuate the "self-help" portion of the bill,
which would give labels broad rights to circulate bogus
music files to frustrate downloaders. But, others argue,
giving them that right puts them squarely on the path to
embedding protected files with viruses or other punitive
measures.

One of my favorite movies is "Repo Man," and one of my
favorite scenes in it is when Harry Dean Stanton recites
the "Repo Code" to his young protege: "I shall not cause
harm to any vehicle, nor to the personal contents thereof;
nor through inaction, let that vehicle, or the personal
contents thereof, come to harm." The point being, a car that
hasn't been paid for should be repossessed if payments are
far enough behind; but nothing not belonging to the
titleholder should come to grief in the process.

The record companies have every right to curb piracy within
legal and ethical means. They have no right at all to put
privately owned PCs in harm's way in doing so. The tricky
part will be letting them accomplish the former without
leaving the door open for the latter.


Dan Heilman is the senior editor of ComputerUser magazine.

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[thinker]

Peer-to-Peer Piracy Prevention Act

That's pretty blatant, eh? That's where actual reporting tells you something that paraphrasing cannot.